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Friday, 14 September 2012

I was just about to listen to The Archers the other night when the
phone went. Normally, I’d follow Ma Blonde’s recommended course of action and completely ignore it until the programme had finished, but it was PolitiGal calling, and
there’s no way you can ignore someone’s call when you’ve peed in one of their ramekins.

“Hello Blonde,” a distinctly
lower-than-expected voice said. “It’s The Spectator here. I was wondering if
you had a Phillips screwdriver?”

PolitiGal and her other half The Spectator,
two of my very favouritest people, moved into a flat just around the corner
from The Writer and me at the beginning of the month. And not just the same
side of the river, nor a walk and a 10-minute bus ride, as one usually means
when one says “just around the corner” when in London, but genuinely irritated-by-the-same-loud-dog-in-that-back-garden, takes-approximately-37-seconds-to-walk-from-our-door-to-theirs just around the
corner.

I’m thrilled. We’ve hung out –
spontaneously – at least once a weekend since they moved in, and I’ve seen them
three times this week alone.

Having great friends so close is a
wonderful thing, but all the more so in London – because it’s just so rare. London,
as I discovered once I’d moved after university, is deceptively large: the only
place I know in which you can live in the same city as your friends, and yet it
takes over an hour to get from your flat to theirs. And, because that’s the
case, social engagements need to be planned well in advance, making diary
management a feat of hitherto unknown and byzantine proportions. Calendars are
booked up weeks, if not months, in advance which, combined with the fact that
it takes at least 35 minutes to get anywhere, means that social spontaneity is
rare.

So imagine my genuine glee that there are chums less than a minute from my flat with whom I can hang out on a whim.
Suddenly, the possibilities have materialised of one quick phonecall and pals
with whom to fill a couple of previously unplanned hours.

So far, we’ve had an impromptu boozy
Saturday lunch at Cornercopia (if you’ve not tried marmalade vodka and tonic, I
suggest you head down there prontissimo); late Saturday afternoon cocktails;
early Saturday night gooseberry gins (yes, there’s a theme. I know) in our
flat, with second helpings of TW’s hastily rustled-up fig and blue cheese
crostini; that infamous Saturday morning cup of tea; and a quick chat about the
merits of fish finger sandwiches on Tuesday evening when I popped round with a
couple of Phillips screwdrivers for bookcase-construction purposes.

Not since I was at university have I had
such close chums in such close proximity. I had forgotten just how bloody
brilliant it is, and now I’ve been reminded. Because it is. It’s fantastic. Now
all I need to do is get everyone else I love to move into our little corner of
the city, and I’m set. The potential to pee in my friends’ ramekins has never
been greater.

5
comments:

Ah, so true. I might as well live in a different country the number of times I see several of my friends who also live in London, albeit in some far out, Zone 4 enclave. Distance somehow becomes longer in London - what would be a quick 10 minute drive in a rural area is a couple of tubes and a bus in London...suddenly it gets a lot harder to make the trek. And you really do appreciate having a pal or two REALLY just around the corner.

I hope one day that will happen to me! You really don't appreciate the close proximity of your friends at university. London is such an abyss sometimes and I hate the whole having to plan months in advance to get everyone's schedules to match up!